I am quite familiar with the concepts you're espousing here. I have no argument with the basic tenets you've put forward and am always quick to recommend the works of theorists/therapists who explore these ideas in depth. Harville Hendrix comes to mind, just off the top of my head.

Still, I must tell you that at 45 yo, my relationship is B' is hardly the first relationship I've ever had. My past experiences (sexually) in long-term relationships have largely been very fulfilling & happy ones. Indeed, with very few exceptions my past relationships have been with men who are sexually open, expressive and adventurous, so I have trouble seeing how your theory applies to me in this regard. Actually, it is the very fact that I've experienced such mutually rewarding sexual intimacy with former partners that makes it so especially painful for me not to be able to have that and more with B'. I know firsthand what we're both missing!

In my case, it has always struck me that each of the relationships I've had in my life have presented with different issues and challenges...different lessons to learn. B' is the first man, however, that I've truly felt is a soulmate and the challenges we have around sexual intimacy are new ones for me. With or without him, however, I have done--and continue to do--much examining and exploring of my own "stuff," and certainly lots within the framework of the kind of concepts you're talking about.

I guess all I'm saying is, while I can recognize quite clearly opportunities in my relationship with B' to resolve/heal old wounds from my childhood (and can see how the same seems to equally apply for him in his choice of me as a partner), I am not aware of having been uncomfortable with sexually open and expressive lovers in the past, nor with being open and expressive with them in kind. There is no doubt an opportunity for healing/resolving more old stuff of my own in the challenges that my relationship with Brant present. Still, I don't think it is about being able to wear some false mask of being a sexually "expressive" woman, since he's sexually "withdrawn" as you put it. And I can assure you that when we were in our "honeymoon phase," during which time he was quite sexually open, expressive and communicative, the whole experience kept me walking 10 feet off the ground in sheer bliss. At the time I never dreamed that sex would ever be a problem for us, that's for sure.

Stride

_________________________
In the right formation,the lifting power of many wings canachieve twice the distance of any bird flying alone.

Rob and I have been seeing eachother for a year and a half. Only six months into our relationship I found out he's had a history of sex with men. Needless to say, it's been a very strange relationship. I never in a million years would have imagined myself in a relationship with a man with his background. Heck, I didn't even know such things existed -- married men running around having sex with men. I really didn't. I've known of cases of gay men coming out while married, but not what was going on with Rob. It's been a huge shock, in so many ways. So, it's been a pretty emotional relationship to say the least. And because it's been so emotional it's been the occasion for me to look at emotions I've never experienced, or at least weren't available to me. Rob has a tendency to present a rather flat emotional valence, though he has deep emotions. I've been an emotional whorlwind. In my previous marriage, my ex was the emotional one, and I suppressed, to a large extent, my emotions. I seemed remarkably "emotionally stable" -- lol. It's just strange how we can take on different roles, or express different aspects of ourselves, in different relationships. But it's all us.

Because Rob's past behavior scares the crap out of me -- as it should, cuz it's scary crap -- I've been forced to confront a lot of my fears reaching back to my childhood in a way that no other relationship has demanded of me, as I've tended to choose people with whom I could play the more "emotionally balanced one". Well, ok, so in some ways this is still true since Rob, not me, went around acting like a crazy gay man when he's really a crazy predominantly straight man, which is pretty darn crazy. But he presents being pretty ok about this, whereas it's driven me crazy

I wouldn't bother with figuring out what all this means about me if I had made the choice to get out of this relationship once all this was revealed. But that I've chosen to stay certainly seems to raise lots of questions about me and why I'm making the choices I'm making -- in lots of different ways. Especially since I have no familial, financial or long-term emotional investment ties to Rob. In this sense, my choice to stay or leave is extremely free or unencumbered.

I've always considered myself a fairly sexual person. Yet here I am in a relationship in which I'm too scared to have a sexual relationship.... Are there really good reasons for my fears? I think so -- and the fact that I think so raises a whole slew of other questions. But then again, I could just leave.

(BTW, Rob is in therapy and is doing unbelievably well -- the twit. And if it were up to him, we'd be having a sexual relationship. Although I wonder if he doesn't secretly feel relieved that we're not, considering his past tendency to flee from women and have sex with men.)

You are right, if it were solely up to me, we would be having a sexual relationship again. And no, I am not "secretly relieved" that we are not; and the idea of fleeing from sex with you -- to go have sex with a man -- is simply out of the question for me, although I know this must be hard for you to believe, given my past. It grieves me -- that you are so scared, and that I am the cause of it, and I am so afraid that you will never be able to get past it. And even though I wish we were having sex again, what is truly more important to me, what I want more than anything, is for you to feel loved and safe and unafraid with me again, and able to freely express the incredibly wonderful, vibrantly sexual, self that you are, knowing that when you do, you will be loved and cherished, not abused or rejected. I so hope that it will again be possible for you to feel this way with me, because I love and cherish you -- and sex can wait until then.

A lot of married couples without the issues that you two have to face would give anything to hear the kinds of things you are saying to each other. It really is moving beyond words, and I wish you all the best as you continue on your healing journey together.

Much love,Larry

_________________________Nobody living can ever stop meAs I go walking my freedom highway.Nobody living can make me turn back:This land was made for you and me.(Woody Guthrie)

I know what Larry said is so true: that many married couples would love to hear the sorts of things you've written, especially what you've written here and the incredible things you often say to me with such sincerity.

Well, an update on this thread as it pertains to Rob and myself: just found out that Rob's been "hiding" or "lieing" -- depending on one's point of view and whether one wishes to put a softer word to a harsh reality -- for two years about a matter of rather great importance to me and about which I have repeatedly expressed my concerns that he be completely honest about.

Two years. Two years of therapy. Two years of being told how I should trust him -- not only by Rob, but by our therapist.

Geeze.

So Selene, in response to your PM about how I'm doing: I'm doing -- "So, what do I do about two years of lies?".

Oh, but things were going really well before this. We even took our two kids to get puppies together -- Rob's daughter and my son. We had a few really great weeks. I had begun to feel what Rob wrote above as well as another cool post in which he talked about lieing in the past and how free he feels now and how people can change and how I should trust this....

So to help me on that path, I had our therapist really focus on MY inability to trust.

Sort of hard to trust when you're being lied to.

Larry,

Sorry things aren't as the seem. It's a bumber. It's always so nice to see the possiblity of two people, despite great odds, seem to come together.

Sorry to hear there are more lies/hiding for you to deal with.......this is the same thing I fear too with my bf, although I do not know what it is Rob kept from you, I myself am finding it incerdibly hard to trust my bf again, for fear he is not being honest about things.....

He has admitted to me that he will withhold all manner of things from me because he fears what my responses might be, and I have been very clear about the fact that this causes me great anxiety. Not only do I not know what I might not be being told, but also I feel a sense of being disliked, or not accepted for who I am. I am not saying I am perfect and so are all my reactions/responses to things, I am perfectly willing to work on myself too, but don't see how I can even do that if there is a constant sensorship going on.....rather than a voicing and expression of thoughts/feelings etc

For a person who has been as open book(too open till now), I feel it is a one sided way to attempt a relationship.....and further more, a delay in seeing if a relationship can actually even be successfull......and it causes me to question how I can possibly trust my bf again, while he is still in the habit of this type of behaviour; since he got to make all his choices in this relationship based on truths about me/my past/my feelings etc, but I never had quite the same freedom of choice, did I?

Sorry Katie, it was not my intention to hijack your post, but what you wrote really hit home my own anxiety about trust...

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